John Frankenheimer directs Rock Hudson as a second : that is, the newly plastic-surgery altered reboot of, in this instance, a listless banker named Arthur Hamilton. Such procedures are carried out by a secret organization known only as The Company, with the promise of giving an individual a chance at making a fresh start at life… but at what cost?

Master lighting cameraman James Wong Howe provides the paranoiac atmosphere to the skewed reality of what came to be widely considered one of Frankenheimer s very best films. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Seconds on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK for the first time. Who are seconds? Where are seconds? Seconds might be all around you. Even Now!

A second chance to live. A second chance to die

SPECIAL FEATURES including:

Gorgeous restoration from a 4K transfer, in 1080p HD on the Blu-ray

Two Feature-length audio commentaries: one by director John Frankenheimer, and one by film scholar Adrian Martin

We often don’t decide until something is out of stock when we look again and reassess the release’s viability. In the case of ROCK HUNTER it’s just not worth repressing them, based on the past 12 months it would take us three years to shift the minimum order quantity, and we’ve only got two months left on the licence which we won’t be renewing because it hasn’t performed.

Zu „The Ballad of Narayama„:

And for those panic buying NARAYAMA, I wouldn’t bother if I were you, it’ll probably find its way back into circulation in another incarnation before the end of the year, hint hint.

Zu „Oedipus Rex„:

We’ve not decided on the dual format yet, we will most likely repress it when the DVD stock runs out, if not we might (although doubtful) make a Pasolini box set, that’s very doubtful though. It’ll be back in the future though.

Don’t worry, that’s far from what will actually be on the disc. There is a tonne more that’s in progress, they’re just the things we have in house right now. Currently working out how to effectively compress several hours of extras.

Combining intellectual ambition with a singular comic sensibility, the third feature film by writer-director Alex Ross Perry marked a defining moment for the American independent cinema of the 2010s. As with his previous features Impolex and The Color Wheel, the blackly hilarious Listen Up Philip is distinguished as much by its literary pedigree as by its fine attunement to atmosphere, sense of place, and, enabled by the camerawork of Sean Price Williams, the texture of the image.

Jason Schwartzman, in one of his most accomplished roles since such Wes Anderson collaborations as Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited, achieves the height of comic verbal violence as the novelist Philip Lewis Friedman who, having received his first taste of literary acclaim, embarks upon the publicity campaign for his soon-to-be-published second novel, Obidant. The attention of his literary hero Ike Zimmerman (played by the first-rate Jonathan Pryce), a major novelist some decades his elder, leads to an open invitation to abscond from Brooklyn and work from Zimmerman’s small-town home upstate. And so the stage is set for all-out warfare between Philip’s seemingly irrepressible ego and the emotionality of his talented photographer girlfriend Ashley who, in a brilliant performance by Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, exhibits the kind of dynamism that could dull Philip’s edge for good.

Put into relief by a cast including Krysten Ritter, Joséphine de La Baume, Keith Poulson, Kate Lyn Sheil, and Bree Hemingway, Schwartzman-as-Friedman embodies what must be one of the most charmingly loathsome or most diabolically winning personalities in recent films. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Listen Up Philip, the picture Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called “a masterwork about what it is to live for love and not just the self,“ in its UK debut on Blu-ray and DVD in a Dual Format edition.

New and exclusive video interview with graphic designer Teddy Blanks, the creator of the Zimmerman and Friedman book jackets featured in the film

Feature-length audio commentary with Alex Ross Perry

Original theatrical trailer

The making of Listen Up Philip

Jason & Sean vs The Cops

36-PAGE FULL-COLOUR BOOKLET containing writing on the film and full-colour reproductions of the Zimmerman and Friedman book jackets, accompanied by never-before-published synopses of each novel written by Perry

Am 17. August 2015 erscheint Nagisa Ôshimas „Nackte Jugend / Seishun zankoku monogatari / Cruel Story of Youth“ [J 1960] bei Masters of Cinema als Dual-Format-Edition.This second feature by the Japanese cinema-insurgent Nagisa Ôshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence) galvanised its home-turf with its topsy-turvy directorial dexterity and stinging castigation of an indolent, self-indulgent youth culture reposing on the eve of the turbulent 1960s.

When high-schooler Makoto is saved from the advances of a lecherous middle-aged man by uni student Kiyoshi, the pair embark on a fits-and-starts affair that finally settles into a sexually extortionary, mutually exploitative dependency that promises to spell their relationship’s doom.

Ôshima’s breakthrough portrait of alienated youth comes courtesy of the 2014 Shochiku 4K scan that resurrected the film’s glorious color palette, recently described by critic and programmer James Quandt as „running riot with retro: pulsing neon, turquoise telephones, hair teased into shellacked grandeur.“ The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Cruel Story of Youth in a Dual Format edition, for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.

In the early 1930s, an administrator for the Tennessee Valley Authority (Clift) arrives in the small town of Garthville with the business of convincing an elderly landowner to sell her land to the government. Soon afterward, he’s thrown into conflicts emotional (falling in love with the landowner’s widowed granddaughter, played by Lee Remick, who is expected to marry another man) and societal (the employment of black labour on the authority’s river project).

„Der Mann aus dem Westen / Man of the West“ [USA 1958, Anthony Mann]MAN OF THE WEST to be released on Blu-ray in the UK. Regarded by Jean-Luc Godard as Mann’s greatest film Anthony Mann’s final foray into the western genre is a disturbing examination of man’s baser instincts, rising in intensity to the level of Shakespearean tragedy. Starring the legendary actor Gary Cooper Man of the West is the story of Link (Cooper) who tried to forget his killer past until an old evil man and a ruthless gang made him remember. MAN OF THE WEST will be released for the first time in the UK on Blu-ray as part of The Masters of Cinema Series in early 2015.

„Wilder Strom / Wild River“ [USA 1960, Elia Kazan]WILD RIVER will be released on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK as part of the Masters of Cinema Series in early 2015. Elia Kazan’s WILD RIVER was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being „culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Starring Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick (Anatomy of a Murder, The Omen).

„Sein Leben in meiner Gewalt / The Offence“ [GB / USA 1972, Sidney Lumet]Sidney Lumet’s THE OFFENCE will be released on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK as part of the Masters of Cinema Series in early 2015. Sean Connery stars as a burned out British Police Detective Sergeant who finally snaps while interrogating a suspected child molester, played by Ian Bannen. Also starring Trevor Howard (Gandhi, The Third Man) and Vivien Merchant (Frenzy, Alfie)

Shoah is a work of genius from Claude Lanzmann, an heroic endeavour to humanise the inhuman, to tell the untellable, and to explore in unprecedented detail the horrors of the past. It is one of the most powerful and important, and greatest, films of all time. Premiering on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, alongside the four films Lanzmann made as follow-ups to Shoah, each of which explore in further depth specific aspects and events of the Nazis‘ extermination programme. These four films (including The Last of the Unjust, released theatrically on 9 January) will also be released as a standalone DVD set, entitled 4 Films After Shoah. Both Lanzmann box sets will be released to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Stanley Donens „Zwei auf gleichem Weg / Two for the Road“ [GB 1967] mit Audrey Hepburn und Albert Finney erscheint am 19. Januar 2015 bei Masters of Cinema als Dual-Format-Edition. Als Bonus gibt es den von der US-DVD bekannten Audiokommentar mit Stanley Donen und ein Interview mit Frederic Raphael, dem Drehbuchautoren des Films.One of the great fims by Stanley Donen (Singin‘ in the Rain, Charade) after the studio era had come to a close, Two for the Road was a break-off with the old system, one which allowed Donen to further stretch his art, aided by screenwriter Frederic Raphael (Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut), in this tale of a couple voluntarily stretching themselves through the long period of their relationship.

Portrayed in fragments that span the couple’s time together in marriage, Two for the Road runs the course of a relationship (between Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) that finds a circumstantial come-together escalate into newlywed-status and, through a series of travails, into the serious situation of bearing a daughter. The disturbance of marriage, and/or life, is chronicled from here on.

After so many studio-system smash-hits, Two for the Road marked a reckoning for director Donen — which went on to influence directors like Jacques Rivette for its portrayal of a couple in interaction and its keen sense of duration across the length of their time together. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road for the first time on Blu-ray in a Dual Format edition.

Originally released in quick succession as three separate features in 1934, Bernard’s film recounts the story of the ex-convict Jean Valjean (Harry Baur) harried by the wicked Inspector Javert (Charles Vanel); of the virtuous Fantine (Florelle, née Odette Rousseau) who sells herself into prostitution for the welfare of her daughter Cosette (Gaby Triquet as the young girl Cosette, and Josseline Gaël as the young woman); and of intersections of these threads and more in an impressive rendering of Hugo’s stately tapestry.

Newly restored in 4K at its original length by Pathé, Les misérables is a major accomplishment on the level of storytelling, and a major component in the history of French film. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Raymond Bernard’s magnum opus for the first time on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK, in a Dual Format edition.

DISC FEATURES

New presentation of the film in its complete length from the new Pathé 4K digital restoration

40-PAGE BOOKLET with new and vintage writing, rare archival material, and more!

One of the Fellini films which has been out of circulation for many years, I clowns [The Clowns] has long been revered by Fellini enthusiasts for the last several decades since its release as among the Maestro’s finest works — a thrilling spectacle once seen for the first time, and a picture which after multiple viewings easily takes its place alongside such classics as La strada, Le notti di Cabiria, La dolce vita, Satyricon, Amarcord… but in a register all its own.

I clowns plays out in dazzling colour and in episodic cascade, just as in Fellini’s late-60s-and-beyond films. As the circus rolls into town, and the big-tent is erected, the clowns execute their acts with feverish can-you-believe-it bravado. It’s all true — and yet not a „documentary“ per se; rather, something inbetween a dramatic-comedic portrayal of gags-at-play and the memoria of all that makes the spark for childhood inspiration to ignite into creative virtuosity… and/or into something like Federico Fellini.

One of the great and underacknowledged treasures of the cinema, I clowns takes its place alongside such films as Bergman’s Carnies‘ Twilight, Ophuls‘ Lola Montès, Étaix’s Yoyo, and Tati’s Parade as one of the grand portraits of the clowning circus, of a bygone era of the wandering entertainer. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Federico Fellini’s I clowns in a special Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition for the first time in the UK.

New high-definition 1080p presentation of feature on the Blu-ray, and in a progressive encode on the DVD

Fellini’s Circus — an essay-film about the picture by the great Italian critic and scholar Adriano Aprà

New and improved English subtitles

A 36-PAGE BOOKLET featuring new writing about the film, rare archival imagery, and more!

Mittlerweile hat Masters of Cinema die Details zur hier bereits genannten Dual-Format-Edition von „Madame DuBarry„[D 1919, Ernst Lubitsch] bekannt gegeben. Das Set wird am 22. September 2014 in den Handel gelangen.Before Ernst Lubitsch created his eminently sophisticated Hollywood sex comedies, he was at work in Germany perfecting his earliest entries into the genre, alongside sweeping ironic dramas based on historical events and often set in exotic locales. One of his earliest successes merged elements of both modes: Madame DuBarry.

A recounting-à-la-Lubitsch of the torrid affair between the title character (Pola Negri) and France’s King Louis XV (Emil Jannings, who would go on to portray Henry VIII in Lubitsch’s Anna Boleyn of the following year – a film that neatly bookends Madame DuBarry), the picture spans scandalous intrigue at the court and the ring of the guillotine among the riotous mobs of the Revolution.

Also included in this edition is Lubitsch’s earliest surviving film, the 1916 Als ich tot war [When I Was Dead], which stars the director himself in a lead role that involves his faked suicide and (prefiguring the later Die Puppe.) an infiltration of the domestic space whilst in disguise (not as an automaton, but as a servant). The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Madame DuBarry and Als ich tot war in a special Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition for the first time.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

New high-definition 1080p presentation of the main feature on the Blu-ray, and progressive encode on the DVD

Original French/German intertitles with newly translated optional English subtitles